Smart speaker with external amp help requested

[Jack W.]

I had a moderately-priced smart speaker (using the play-fi eco system) with a nice sound, The speaker recently failed. I am generally handy, but with limited electronics expertise. For fun, I disassembled the speaker, assuming that the wifi or mainboard failed. So I extended, then connected, the speaker wires to two different external lower-end "chip" amps. I then connected the amp to an echo dot unit (which I think is reasonably close to the play-fi hardware, but his may be the issue?) for streaming the same Amazon HD music channels as before. Decent, but sub-par sound. So I connected the speaker to an expensive amp, similar result. I have tried several different troubleshooting ideas with no improvement. I realize there a numerous variables, but would appreciate any quick thoughts or ideas, thanks.

 

[Al ears]

I had a moderately-priced smart speaker (using the play-fi eco system) with a nice sound, The speaker recently failed. I am generally handy, but with limited electronics expertise. For fun, I disassembled the speaker, assuming that the wifi or mainboard failed. So I extended, then connected, the speaker wires to two different external lower-end "chip" amps. I then connected the amp to an echo dot unit (which I think is reasonably close to the play-fi hardware, but his may be the issue?) for streaming the same Amazon HD music channels as before. Decent, but sub-par sound. So I connected the speaker to an expensive amp, similar result. I have tried several different troubleshooting ideas with no improvement. I realize there a numerous variables, but would appreciate any quick thoughts or ideas, thanks.

Buy another speaker?

 

[Cork]

My guess is that you bypassed their equalization/DSP for the box. Now you're hearing the straight speaker. That's not a knock on the box, I'm guessing it's a smaller speaker and it's going to need some juicing to sound good. If you run it through something that has an 'Enhancer' option, that may help.

 

[Gray]

For fun, I disassembled the speaker, assuming that the wifi or mainboard failed.

If you've got enough knowledge to tell the boards apart - then it might not be too much of a stretch for you to find the fault.

Presumably your smart speaker has no aux line input.

If you can identify the amp input on the main board, you'd be able to tell whether that's working.
A line level out of the Dot is your signal injector for test purposes - if the amp's ok....maybe the sound will be as good as it was and you can make a permanent connection.